During the Lew Wolff-John Fisher era, the A’s owners have been terrible at marketing the franchise to Bay Area baseball fans. Sportswriter Ann Killion said it best in a column six years ago:

Wolff’s marketing strategy has been to not so subtly let potential ticket buyers know that they would be foolish to go to games at the rundown Oakland Coliseum…The A’s aren’t just losing their existing fan base and tradition, they’ve lost an entire Bay Area generation.

So, how will this A’s ownership (or the next one) win back the lost generation of Bay Area fans?

We tried to answer that question a few years ago through a series of blogs about improving A’s marketing. And improving A’s marketing is more important than ever because if the A’s owners truly are going to build a successful new ballpark in Oakland, they have to start attracting casual fans as soon as possible. If they’re not going to spend money on keeping players — and the Reddick-Hill trade Monday only reaffirmed that notion — then they’ll simply have to work harder on public relations. And they can do that by just starting to try, even in basic ways. That sounds obvious, we know, but it’s true. Wolff and Fisher haven’t really tried to build the A’s fan base since they bought the team in 2005. Instead, they’ve been content to do the bare minimum and still make a huge annual profit while collecting more than $30 million in yearly revenue sharing from other teams’ owners.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, it’s never too late for Wolff and Fisher to start trying. And they can do that by spending a little money and not treating every penny like it’s a sacred artifact. They could invest with more resources and renewed vigor in the Oakland Athletics brand, using a long-term vision to attract new Bay Area fans over the next 20 or 30 years. In short, they could:

Establish a presence in Oakland and the East Bay by opening an old-fashioned “A’s Dugout Store” at Jack London Square or downtown Oakland. Sell T-shirts to A’s fans who are dying to show some Green-and-Gold pride but can’t because of the lack of stores offering A’s merchandise. And once that store is successful, you can open other branches in other parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

Embrace the city of Oakland. Take a page from the merch-biz playbook written by Oaklandish, which opened a successful store on Broadway, near Oakland City Hall. Oaklandish’s downtown store is always crowded with shoppers excited to celebrate their pride in Oakland. Many Bay Area baseball fans are waiting for A’s owners to show even a fraction of the same level of Oakland civic pride. As soon as the A’s do, they’ll enjoy the same success that Oaklandish earns by tapping into that market.

Billboards: Wolff and Fisher spend so little money on traditional advertising that we are shocked whenever we see an A’s billboard in the East Bay. It shouldn’t be that way. In early April, the A’s surprised us by renting billboard space at 27th Street and Grand Avenue in Oakland. A few weeks later, the ad was gone of course. Since then, there’ve been few other A’s billboards seen in the East Bay. It was merely a reminder of the A’s owners’ “Do the Bare Minimum” style. The team would benefit from blanketing the area with A’s billboards, especially in the weeks and months before and after Opening Night.

TV and Radio Advertising: Quick pop quiz: When was the last time you saw an A’s TV commercial on any station besides the two CSN sports channels? How can the franchise attract casual fans if it doesn’t advertise where casual fans live, work, and play? Many times we’ve heard a segment on the A’s flagship radio station, only to have it followed by a Giants commercial. Unacceptable.

Knock on Doors: All other successful Bay Area sports franchises have done this. Stop by local businesses, churches, and schools and offer ticket deals and discounts. Be aggressive in doing whatever it takes to get rear ends in the Coliseum seats, knowing that ticket revenue is only part of the battle — just as much money (and perhaps more) is made from a combo in sales of parking, food-drink concessions, T-shirt and other merchandise booths, and from the local TV revenue earned from rising ratings stemming from a fan base that could be growing from the improved marketing.

Stop badmouthing the Oakland Coliseum: Celebrate all that great history at the stadium at 66th Avenue & Hegenberger Road in East Oakland. Don’t malign the Coliseum, celebrate it! Most A’s fans by now know that, a) we need a new ballpark, and b) it will be built at Howard Terminal or the Coliseum site. So there’s no need to keep badmouthing the old stadium — ya’ know, the one where the A’s have played in 6 World Series, won 4 World Series titles, and made the postseason 18 times. It’s the former home of Reggie, Vida, Catfish, Rollie, Charlie O, Rickey, Eck, the Big 3, Stew, Hendu, the Bash Brothers, BillyBall, La Russa, Giambi, Tejada, Bill King, Lon Simmons, The Streak, and some baseball movie starring Brad Pitt. It’s amazing the Coliseum has all of that history. Why not celebrate it? Former A’s marketing guru Andy Dolich says it best: Any sports team owner who badmouths his own stadium is like a chef telling customers that the restaurant’s chairs are rickety, the paint is peeling, the service stinks, and the food is bad. That’s bad for business, so why do it?

Pay to make improvements to the Oakland Coliseum: As long as you are there at the historic old ballyard, take a page from the Warriors, who have spent millions of dollars upgrading Oracle Arena, even as they try to leave it. Why not spend a little money to make more down the road — show a little pride and NOT take the short money each and every time. Some might point to the new scoreboard that the A’s paid for, but the A’s owners chiseled $5 million from city/county taxpayers on that deal, making sure that 50 percent of the $10 million scoreboard cost was paid for with tax dollars that Wolff and Fisher once owed taxpayers. Also, whenever this topic comes up, Wolff’s apologists like to say that, “Wolff and Fisher are only tenants and wish they could do more.” Sorry, that’s BS. Lacob and Guber are “only tenants,” too, at the Arena next door. But that doesn’t stop them from spending a little more to make Warriors games in Oakland a first-class affair. And don’t say, “Aren’t the Dubs moving soon to SF?” Sorry, that’s irrelevant. The W’s are in Oakland now and they’re making tons of money in Oakland now, making no excuses in Oakland now, and spending and doing whatever it takes to make your visits to the Arena a fun and problem-free experience. In Oakland. Now. And it’s paying off big-time for them in the bottom line. There’s nothing stopping A’s owners from doing the same. In Oakland. Now.

Simple Game Day Improvements at the Coliseum: Open more concession stands. Fans shouldn’t have to walk halfway across the ballpark just to buy something basic like a hot dog. For able-bodied young fans, it’s merely annoying and likely depresses future ticket sales. But it ruins the game day experience for a single parent with several small kids, or for those fans who are handicapped or elderly. Also, by limiting the number of open concession stands, A’s owners crowd all the fans into a few concourses, and then those same owners complain about the size of those same concourses. That doesn’t add up. Also, work with the concession food company to offer a more diverse menu that better reflects the East Bay and its creative food scene. Oakland is a foodie town but you’d never know it from watching an A’s game at the Coliseum. Also, open all entrance gates at the Coliseum. Why make fans wait in line an extra long time before entering the stadium, hampering their game day experience — especially when all of those hassles can be avoided by simply opening a few more entrances. It doesn’t cost that much more. Reward your loyal fans by making their game day experience easier, more fun, and less troublesome. Also, open the entrance gates earlier for bobblehead days and other giveaways so that families, kids, and the elderly aren’t forced to sit in the sweltering summer sun for hours and hours to get the souvenir. In short, please treat your fans better in basic, easy-to-do ways.

Stop badmouthing Oakland and “the challenges of this market:” We’ll say it again. In Oakland and the Bay Area, there are no “small markets.” There are only small owners. Lew Wolff, John Fisher, and Mike Crowley (and Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann before them) are your prototypical “small owners.” Oakland isn’t a small market. In fact, there are nearly 25 other ownership groups that would kill to have a market with the economic strength and public transit options of Oakland and the surrounding Bay Area. When A’s owners blame any A’s-related problems on Oakland or “this current market,” they are factually wrong — plain and simple. Blaming the market also turns off casual fans, giving them one more reason not to buy a ticket.

Pay your legendary ballplayers to represent you in the community. Why do you think Reggie Jackson wears a Yankees hat everywhere he goes? Because he GETS PAID to do so, that’s why. Guys like Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, Mark Mulder, Blue Moon Odom, Joe Rudi, Campy Campaneris, and Miguel Tejada are personable and available retired A’s legends who would be great candidates to play the same role that Mays and McCovey do for the Giants and Jackson does for the Yankees. In baseball, nothing sells like nostalgia. So, pay some of those A’s legends listed above and get them out in Bay Area communities as ambassadors for the A’s brand.

Get our own radio station to compete with KNBR. In 2011, Wolff and Fisher could have bought their own KNBR-like megastation and they could have had it all for less than the cost of Billy Butler’s three-year contract. But cheapskates aren’t exactly known for their street smarts and vision. So, instead of making a long-term investment in 860AM — which, like KNBR, can reach the far corners of Northern California — Wolff and Fisher pulled back their offer when the price got too high for them. (You’ve heard that one before from these guys, haven’t you?) Yes, Wolff and Fisher saved a few pennies but, as usual, it cost them down the road. KNBR and the Giants use their megastation to promote all things Giants and San Francisco, all the time. They ignore the A’s and Oakland and it’s been a big part of the Giants’ huge success in tapping into the wealthy Bay Area Market while marginalizing the A’s and their fans. So, most A’s fans for years have wanted to fight back by getting their own version of KNBR, promoting Oakland and the Green-and-Gold in order to compete with the Giants. Instead, the A’s since 2011 have been at 95.7 The Game, whose signal can be hard to get in some parts of the Bay Area. Also, The Game’s hosts too often talk more Giants and 49ers news than they do about the A’s. Meanwhile, 860AM now is ESPN Deportes, the network’s Bay Area Spanish-language sports station. Speaking of Spanish-language broadcasts …

Appeal to the East Bay’s Diversity. As California’s number of Spanish speakers rises each year, offer radio broadcasts of ALL 162 games in Spanish. In addition, do alternative broadcasts of the “All A’s” TV show in other languages, including Spanish, Cantonese or Mandarin, and others. Also, take a page from the Warriors’ Chinese New Year jerseys and sell more T-shirts, jerseys and other merchandise in other languages. And you can sell them in those newly opened A’s Dugout Stores we suggested above. Merchandise should be made with words in the languages of Mandarin and Cantonese and sold in Oakland’s Chinatown; in Hindi and other languages for Fremont’s large Indo-American population; in Spanish in Oakland’s Fruitvale district; and in Tagalog marketed for Union City’s large Filipino community; to name a few.

There are other ideas we could share, but you get the point. We want to emphasize that these suggestions are not intended to criticize the hard-working rank-and-file A’s employees who, like Manager Bob Melvin, are asked every day to work miracles with an underpaid and understaffed roster. No, the blame for the longtime terrible A’s marketing should be squarely placed on Wolff, Fisher, and Crowley, each of whom could be doing a lot more to provide resources and staffing to market the A’s franchise better to Bay Area fans. Ann Killion was right. Through their laziness and greed, the current A’s owners have lost a generation of Bay Area baseball fans to the competition. The good news is, A’s owners can get those fans back. All they have to do is try.

In what has become a disturbing and far too frequent trend, Oakland A’s managing partner Lew Wolff has given A’s fans little but unwanted confusion and controversy when instead he should be promoting the team. The March 2014 edition consisted of Wolff spouting off last week about how he seeks a temporary ballpark if Coliseum lease negotiations do not go his way. To us, this could be the most absurd idea, among many, to ever slither out of Lew’s lips.

To explain better, let’s break it down into three parts:

1. Why it’s bad for fans

2. Why it’s bad for team’s short term revenue

3. Why it’s bad for team’s long term goals

Why it’s bad for fans

Oakland fans have a well-deserved reputation as one of the loudest, most enthusiastic fans in all of baseball. You only need to flashback to the 2013 playoffs and remember 48,000 standing, towel-waving die-hards to know how much energy Oakland fans bring. A temporary stadium would only serve 20,000, maybe even less. That would heavily cut down on the noise and atmosphere that makes A’s games so great. Also, it would severely disappoint A’s fans and their expectations of what Major League Baseball should be. Sure, the Coliseum is nearly 50 years old and not without its flaws, but it’s still a solid MLB park with MLB facilities. Fans do not want to go to a Major League game and get minor league treatment.

Why it’s bad for team’s short turn needs

If one thing is clear about Wolff it’s that he values luxury boxes and premium seat sales over anything else, even the average fan. (Heck, especially the average fan.) So why move to a temporary facility that has no luxury suites and premium seats, let alone established traffic/transit ingress and egress. Also, dropping capacity down to 20,000 will significantly hurt team revenue, limiting the budget even further. And Lord knows neither Wolff or Fisher would want their more than $20 million a year in team profits messed with. We’ve never believed the claim that the Coliseum scared away prospective free agents. That’s fiction. The reality is that bad managers (paging Bob Geren) do much more to scare away players. If you pay a player what he feels he’s worth to play for a contender, then anybody will sign anywhere. Ask Coco Crisp, who just re-upped with the A’s for a few more years, instead of “fleeing” the Coliseum. The one exception to that argument might be Lew’s wacky temporary park idea. It’s such a laughably bad idea that’s it’s almost guaranteed to keep players away.

Why it’s bad for the long term needs

If by some miracle San Jose’s silly lawsuit (as tacitly approved by Lew) was dismissed today and he got approval to go to San Jose, playing a few years in a temporary park would mean that Lew would have to start from scratch. We can guarantee many loyal A’s fans would not follow the team to a temporary stadium. And newer fans in San Jose won’t jump to a temp park either. This would leave Lew to try and build a fan base from scratch in an area that, historically, is very Giants heavy. It all would be a far cry from the cash windfalls that San Jose’s tiny but vocal group of boosters claim would be made.

We’ve probably given this thing more attention than it deserved. It’s all just another part of the long-and-winding road that this bad ownership has asked fans to travel. It’s time that Lew either starts working with Oakland stadium supporters or sells to someone who will.